It is inevitable that some people who have been completely vaccinated against COVID-19 will still have an “advanced” infection. Anthony Fauci
Anthony Fauci Vaccinated Fauci welcomes people home, but stays away from crowded interior spaces and Trump backs Rand Paul for re-election The Hill’s Morning Report – Biden: Let’s make a deal on infrastructure and taxes MORE said Monday, because no vaccine is 100% effective.
An advanced infection is when a person gets a disease despite being vaccinated against it. Fauci noted that there will be hundreds, and perhaps thousands of instances of fully vaccinated people infected with COVID-19.
The key is to compare the small number of infections with the dozens and ultimately with hundreds of millions of people vaccinated, Fauci said.
“We see it with all vaccines, in clinical trials, in the real world,” Fauci said during a White House briefing. “No vaccine is 100% effective or efficient, which means you’ll always see advanced infections, regardless of the effectiveness of your vaccine.”
Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, noted that the best example of advanced infections comes with the flu vaccine. The flu virus mutates quickly, and even for a good year, the vaccine is only 40% to 60% effective.
However, even if a vaccine does not protect against infection, it often protects against serious illness.
“If you get vaccinated, you’re certainly less likely to get the flu. But even if you have the flu and you get sick, vaccination can reduce the severity and duration of the disease and help you get out of trouble. “Said Fauci.
During the briefing, Fauci also addressed an Israeli prepress study this was news over the weekend, which seems to have found that variant B.1.351 could evade some protection against the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine.
“With all due respect to my Israeli friends, I think that pre-impression, so to speak, was as confusing as you could be,” Fauci said. “The only thing not to confuse is that two doses are really good” if you want to be completely protected.
Fauci said the study looked like people who received two doses of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine were more likely to become infected with variant B.1.351 than people who were not vaccinated.
Fauci said vaccine protection means that in the unlikely event of an infection, it will probably be the “hardest variant,” but “that doesn’t mean you’re more likely to get it.”